One Step at a Time
by LiquidThought
Summary: Finding his most dangerous enemy in an unexpected place, Harry Potter has to figure out a way to fight his own battles. This new-found routine is not easily unlearned and might just prove to be the one thing keeping disaster at arm's length - especially as Harry's definition of 'his own battles' changes and his odd brand of warfare gains support. Canon compliant up to end of GoF
1. Chapter 1

**_One Step at a Time_**

 _ **Summary** : Finding his most dangerous enemy in an unexpected place, Harry Potter has to figure out a way to fight his own battles. This new-found routine is not easily unlearned and might just prove to be the one thing keeping disaster at arm's length - especially as Harry's definition of 'his own battles' changes and his odd brand of warfare gains support. Canon compliant up to the end of GoF._

 _ **Disclaimer**_ : _Harry Potter is not mine. I mean, seriously, who would want to own that kind of trouble?_

 _ **Trigger Warning** : Depression - ugly, degrading, surreal, eye-opening; call it what you will._

 _ **AN** : Hi there! As much as I'm all for letting the work speak for itself, I'm also aware that this first chapter might be quite misleading when it comes to what you're bound to expect to follow once you finish reading it. So you should know that this story is not going to be an angst-filled pity party. Depression, while undoubtedly a great part of the first few chapters and my Harry's life, is merely used as a tool to teach him a valuable lesson - one necessary to the plot. Not to mention it's not exactly an improbable development considering a forcefully isolated, freshly traumatized teenage boy with too much time on his hands. Anyway, hope you read on and enjoy the story!_

~o~o~o~

 **1 - Get out of Bed**

Harry Potter needed to pee. Green eyes scanned the part of the room in their line of vision for some conveniently shaped, easily washable object. As nothing fitting those requirements was found, said requirements were promptly stripped of luxurious pretences. With 'conveniently shaped object' in mind tired orbs were laboriously pushed through the motion again – up, ahead, down. Shoes.

 _Yuck!_

 _Who cares?_

From his position, the battered grey trainers were out of his reach, though. He would have to sit up, stand, walk at least two steps, crouch down-

 _So many things to do._

 _Tired_.

Come to think of it, he did not mind holding it all that much.

~o~o~o~

He woke up to a dull ache in his underbelly. It would have made him squirm except squirming meant moving and moving meant exerting energy – something Harry Potter was sorely lacking.

Judging from the somewhat dimmer light coming through the window, it was around nine. He had probably dozed off for an hour or two. Harry could not remember when he had last had full eight hours' worth of sleep. Between nightmares and endless moments of staring into the wall or the ceiling or the wardrobe door, there was only so much quality sleeping time one could squeeze in.

He could not remember when he had last eaten, either. Calling upon his old experience with going through the first few stages of starvation, he evaluated the pain in his stomach and concluded that he had been without food for nearly two days. That could be about right – those birthday chocolates had come in the morning, now it was evening and there had definitely been a night somewhere in between.

Or maybe two? Probably just one, since he didn't think he had been to the bathroom during that time. Not using the loo for three whole days and ending up with only a mildly painful bladder was nothing if not highly unlikely.

That reminded him that he had had his last glass of water that morning, too. Damn. He would have to get up, walk all the way to the bedroom door-

 _So many things to do._

 _Tired_.

But damn did he need to pee. Was it really necessary to move to do that?

 _Gross!_

 _Who cares?_

 _Fact: If I don't get some fluids in the foreseeable future, I die of dehydration._

 _Who cares?_

 _I do._

And Harry Potter got out of bed.

~o~o~o~

 _ **AN** : Not your cup of tea? Well, I should hope so. I know you might not feel like it after this first taste of One Step at a Time but pretty please, review? Longer chapters coming._


	2. Chapter 2

**_One Step at a Time_**

 _ **Summary** : __Finding his most dangerous enemy in an unexpected place, Harry Potter has to figure out a way to fight his own battles. This new-found routine is not easily unlearned and might just prove to be the one thing keeping disaster at arm's length - especially as Harry's definition of 'his own battles' changes and his odd brand of warfare gains support. Canon compliant up to the end of GoF._

 _ **Disclaimer** : I'm not a thief, you know. And if I was, there are better things to steal than Harry Potter._

 _ **Trigger Warning** : Depression_

 _AN: Hello, you brave, brave people whom my first chapter failed to scare away. Hope you still find this story worth your while after this one, too!_

~o~o~o~

 **2 - Talk**

He didn't recognise the person staring back at him from the mirror. Those dead eyes surely were not his own. Neither was the clammy, wan skin stretched over cheekbones prominent to the point of looking painfully sharp, nor the shaggy mess of too long hair. That gaunt thing with pallid chapped lips and the blankest of blank expressions was not Harry Potter.

Except it was and he scrambled for explanations. Why did he let himself fall this far? And how did it happen so fast without his consent? He certainly hadn't asked for this.

Explanations along with all rational thought were proving frustratingly elusive. There was this all-consuming, stifling mist rolling around in his head and he vaguely remembered finding it pleasantly numbing a few weeks ago, when it had first come. Now, he was struggling to make it go away with little success.

This was getting pathetic. Wrong – this had been pathetic for quite a while. He needed to pull himself together right this instant and stay together for as long as possible. He had-

 _So many things to do._

 _Tired_.

"SHUT UP!" he roared at the ghastly image in the mirror planting both his hands onto the cold white sink. He had only a split second to cherish the sudden spark of anger before it disappeared in the thick mist of fatigue. If he had had any doubts, the harsh contrast told him exactly what he had been – and now was again – feeling. Nothing.

Abruptly, the bathroom door flew open and there stood a miffed-looking aunt Petunia in all her apron-clad glory.

A distant part of his mind thought that it would be appropriate to flush with embarrassment, take cover behind the nearest towel and perhaps apologise for yelling. But that part sounded muffled and weak while the rest loudly assured him that he didn't care, he was numb and so very tired.

So he stood there, stark naked, and watched his aunt stare at him. Surprisingly, she didn't start shrieking right off the bat. She, in fact, said nothing and just before turning away to leave, when their eyes met for a brief moment, there was a flicker of something in her face. Something Harry would never have expected to see there directed at him. Something his pride would normally have him rage and scream at. As it was, he felt an odd mixture of mild irritation and amusement wash over him.

The door closed behind her with a soft _click_.

When he finally found it in himself to return to his bedroom, there was a bowl of steaming stew on the table. He could work with pity, all right.

~o~o~o~

In the last five hours he had managed to avoid imminent death by dehydration, take a shower and eat a full meal as well as keep it down. Harry Potter was quite proud of his recent accomplishments.

The same, however, could not be said about his behaviour for the past month. Sitting on a plain wooden chair at the table, empty bowl pushed to the side, elbows burrowed in a jumble of crumpled old newspapers and letters, his head in his hands, Harry was desperately trying to explain himself to his conscience.

There must have been a reason. He must have made a decision - a very bad one for sure - resulting in this mess, somehow. But everything after about a week into the summer holidays was a blur, days and nights blending together into one big gob of raw emptiness and mild confusion. Who knew that survivor's guilt plus complete lack of non-frustrating human contact equalled a month of being _utterly useless_?

 _Tired._

...useless _and_ tired, then. Exhaustion was no legitimate excuse. Besides, he wasn't looking for an excuse, anyway. He was searching for a reason.

 _Why? What usually makes me tik in a tight spot? What's missing now that was there before?_

Why had he gone off to save the Philosopher's Stone in his first year? He couldn't even remember making the decision. Sure, he had been only eleven but he couldn't simply have waved the threat to his and his friends' lives off as no big deal. He couldn't have weighed the possible outcomes and determined the risk worth it, could he? If there had been a decision made sometime throughout that evening, it had been totally impulsive with zero brainpower behind it. There had been two kids to bond with as well as a burning desire to prove himself firmly entwined with a barely healthy amount of daring and self-appointed responsibility.

Should he be honest with himself, his second and third year adventures were alarmingly similar in origin - maybe with the added effect of his infamous, rapidly developing saving-people thing. And as for this year's events, well, he had never been a great fan of denial. He knew he had only his instincts and fortunate spur-of-the-moment actions to thank for his continued survival.

No kids to bond with - check. No clear-cut problem to be solved by taking responsibility and running head first into danger - check. And one had themselves a useless and tired Boy-Who-Lived.

 _So all I need to do is get myself back into the mindset of a rash show-off with enviable instincts, an unholy amount of luck, a saving-people thing and a distinct reluctance to use anything remotely resembling a brain._

 _...Tired?_

 _Or I can take this opportunity of having to rebuild myself from scratch and make Harry Potter into an actual human being - complete_ _with some patience, humility, rational judgement..._

 _Huh._

~o~o~o~

As soon as he woke up screaming after yet another one of his one-to-two-hour naps, he knew that this rebuilding-Harry-Potter plan was going to be the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. That is, if he went through with it.

Whatever progress he had made - or whatever it had been he had made that had seemed like progress at the time - was gone without a trace. Where there had been hope before, now, there was nothing. The tiny flame of determination he had managed to kindle two hours ago was nowhere to be found and at the moment, he would swear he had just imagined it - since the energy to feel anything at all seemed entirely unattainable.

Having sufficiently acknowledged that, yes, he hit rock bottom _again,_ Harry let himself fall into a restless slumber.

~o~o~o~

Considering the peeving brightness of the sunshine coming through the window it appeared that this time, he had actually gotten a somewhat more substantial amount of sleep. That, however, did not seem to have endeared the idea of moving to him any. He just wanted to curl into a ball and die.

 _Well, maybe not die._

 _Who cares?_

 _I do?_

 _Tired._

He was aware that it was weak, pathetic and altogether unbecoming of Harry Potter to admit defeat to something as banal as exhaustion. He was aware that if innocent, naive, annoying Colin Creevey saw him this way, he would lose that ever-present nervous enthusiasm that always got hold of him around Harry. He was aware that insecure, shy, brave Neville Longbottom would no longer deem him safe enough to talk to so openly. He was aware that if Sirius, Hermione, the Weasleys, professor Lupin, Hagrid or professor Dumbledore knew, they would be ashamed of him. He was aware that wherever they were, he was probably making his parents sad. He was aware of many potentially unpleasant, humiliating or outright awful things - he just, for the life of him, couldn't come up with one that would make him care.

 _Proving to yourself exactly how deeply you_ don't care _won't change anything. Don't dig yourself a hole you can't crawl out of. You need to_ get better, _whatever that means_ _. Think on that._

There had once been a plan to mould Harry Potter into a better person, he vaguely recalled. It had once made him feel like he had a future outside this bed.

 _How do I implant a goal into my mind and make it work towards fulfilling that goal even though it lacks the capacity to care?_

Harry shivered. When put that way, it sounded rather ominous. And he didn't actually lack the capacity to care, it was just...asleep. He had cared enough to sit down, think and come up with that very goal less than twenty four hours ago. What on Earth had given him the supernatural power to do that?

 _Some or all of the following: Getting yourself out of bed, taking a piss, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, making aunt Petunia pity you enough to leave food in your room, eating said food._

When he seriously thought about it, it wasn't that hard a puzzle to crack.

 _Overcoming obstacle. Successfully completing task. Human contact._

Well, this was surprisingly straightforward. He was at a standstill, that was his problem. He needed to move. Gain momentum. Get back to the next level where 'take a shower' meant 'have a relaxing break' to him and not 'prepare for the peak achievement of the day'.

 _Careful. Don't get ahead of yourself. You have some idea now what your reaction to failure would be. If you can't see it in time, you want to walk into the brick wall rather than run into it. There's no rush. Think before you do anything at all._

Systematically, then. One step at a time.

All he needed to do right now was give himself a task. Something simple enough to accomplish in the next few hours but still challenging while somehow involving at least one person other than himself. Since at this point just about everything seemed challenging to him, 'simple enough to accomplish in the next few hours, somehow involving at least one person other than himself' it was.

His internal clock told him it would soon be noon, meaning the only other person in the house would be in the kitchen downstairs cooking. Conveniently, she was probably the best option if he had to choose one person to talk to at this point. Petunia Dursley already thought the worst of him, there was nothing to lose if he made an idiot out of himself - and in this state of mind there was no doubt he would do exactly that. Besides, he should probably eat something, anyway.

 _Objective: Get better_

 _Obstacle: Myself_

 _Short-term goal: Talk to aunt Petunia_

 _Human contact: Check_

 _Go._

~o~o~o~

Sun shining through the open patio door bathing the pristinely clean dining room in natural light and warmth, gentle breeze playing with the net curtains, bringing a taste of the heat outside into the house; it was a beautiful summer day, really. Except Harry couldn't but find the sun intrusive and obnoxious, the heat suffocating.

The kitchen area seemed somewhat more bearable as the rays could not reach there. A fair-haired tall woman in a very proper-looking calf-length yellow skirt and a simple white cotton blouse was moving about the nook with practised eficience, her back to the door, not even noticing her nephew's arrival.

As he walked across the the room, Harry distantly felt himself panicking. It wasn't like anything he remembered ever feeling but somehow he knew it was, in fact, panic. Although the forefront of his mind was eerily calm, there was this disturbing background _noise_ setting Harry's teeth on edge, making him somewhat jittery, restless.

It was one thing to tell yourself 'I will talk to my bitch of an aunt, who has hated me for as long as I can remember, the only precedent for the two of us having a civil conversation being...non-existent' and another thing entirely to actually open your mouth and in full consciousness, sound of mind unleash Hell. Suddenly, Harry had to wonder whether it hadn't been that side of him too tired to care about staying alive, who had come up with this crazy idea.

But he was freaking himself out; that was the weakness, the numbness, the void talking. He could do no harm here. Even if his aunt threw him out of the house as a result, he would have done the right thing. He would have tried. Keeping the promise to himself. Moving forward. Getting better. With that in mind, Harry braced himself and _pushed._

"Need a hand?" he asked, his voice softer than intended but making Petunia jump, nonetheless.

Having set the knife down on the chopping board next to a shiny pink lump of chicken breast, Harry's aunt turned around wiping her hands on the floral print apron - slowly, as if buying time to compose herself. She must have done a good job of it since when her eyes met Harry's at last, her expression was perfectly unreadable.

"Peel the potatoes," she finally said motioning to the steaming colander in the sink before turning back to the meat.

Marvelling at the lack of spite or command in his aunt's tone Harry quickly found himself a clean bowl, a knife and careful not to get burnt if it was still too hot, picked up a potato.

Halfway through with the second one, he chose to say: "Thanks for dinner yesterday."

The next few minutes gave a whole new meaning to 'awkward silence' in Harry's eyes. He was on his eighth potato when Petunia finally spoke.

"You should air out your room. It stinks." No disgust, no contempt. Just a flat statement of fact. Quite a feat, coming from his obsessively cleanly aunt.

 _Well, that's what happens when you spend days on end in bed without showering or changing the sheets, I guess._

Shame, embarrassment, urge to justify himself; none of it felt quite urgent enough to pay attention to. So his aunt who had so far believed him to be merely a worthless freak now also thought he was a filthy slob. Oh well.

"Sorry. I will," Harry replied a potato later.

Oil sizzled as Petunia added the pieces of chicken to the mix of onions and red peppers in the frying pan.

It took three tries failed after taking the initial breath and one more potato for Harry to ask. Maybe his aunt had noticed he hadn't been himself this past month. Maybe she would know what to do. Maybe she could help. There was no way Harry was mentioning this to anyone in his letters - what with _them_ being the epitome of _unhelpful_ \- and his next best shot at getting some advice was barmy, cat-loving Mrs Figg. On the other hand, the Dursleys had always been as observant when it came to him as Ron was tactful.

 _Here goes nothing._

"What else do you think I should do?"

Petunia tensed, shot him a strange look, prodded at the chicken with a wooden spatula for a while, then glanced at the clock on the wall, sighed and with an air of finality, turning down the heat under it covered the pan with a glass lid. Harry began peeling his last potato watching curiously out of the corner of his eye as his aunt set about making tea for two.

~o~o~o~

 _AN: Thanks for reading. Review, please? The big change making ripples and causing the story to irreversibly move away from canon coming next!_


	3. Chapter 3

**_One Step at a Time_**

 _ **Summary** : __Finding his most dangerous enemy in an unexpected place, Harry Potter has to figure out a way to fight his own battles. This new-found routine is not easily unlearned and might just prove to be the one thing keeping disaster at arm's length - especially as Harry's definition of 'his own battles' changes and his odd brand of warfare gains support. Canon compliant up to the end of GoF._

 _ **Disclaimer** : Not mine, if you were wondering._

 _ **Trigger Warning** : Depression_

 _AN: And off we go..._

~o~o~o~

 **3 - Move**

"You're such a bitch, you know that?" Harry muttered, watching the neighbours' kid play with a cute rottweiler puppy through the living room window. The dog had to be new since he had never seen it around. Well, he hadn't exactly been around, himself, so he might have just not noticed.

Petunia bristled, opened her mouth and then closed it again, too confused by the strange combination of the insult and the relived, almost grateful tone of voice in which the boy had spoken it, to scold him. She gazed at the scrawny figure standing in a halo of sunlight in front of the window and not for the first time this summer had to wonder, whether her nephew had been not only depressed but also actually going mad during all the time he had spent holed up in Dudley's storeroom.

She had long since got used to hearing his screams at odd hours of days and nights and learned after which she would need to go up and clean the mess, if she didn't want it to stay there for at least two more days. How _insane_ did your life have to become for you to recognise a spectrum of screams from one to six and know that he usually threw up after three and five - all of this concerning the very person you had set out to ignore in the first place? At least now, she finally knew why. In the end, it wasn't her problem any more. The boy would be leaving soon. In fact, as long as he hadn't endangered her family in any way, it had never really been her problem.

Still relishing the buzz, the thrill, the _feeling,_ Harry stared at the neighbours' close-cropped lawn, now unseeing. While he certainly wouldn't have labelled this as the best case scenario an hour ago, it gave him what he had wanted from the conversation with Petunia in the first place - a push to finally _move forward._ Unwittingly, his aunt had provided exactly what he had subconsciously been yearning for - a clear-cut, fight-or-flight type of situation where his instincts relentlessly spurred him on into choosing action over passivity. Besides, a change of scenery would do him good. He was sick of, well, himself, mostly, but this place, too.

First, he needed to acknowledge that he had screwed up, here, though. Despite having considered the possibility of being made to leave as a result of this conversation and deeming the favourable outcome worth the risk, things had not had to end like this and he was one hundred percent to blame for the fact that they had. He had had all the information needed to do better and he hadn't.

 _Yes, tell a mother that the parasitic freak in her house has been drawing a homicidal freak from the outside like a magnet to her family for the past month, what do you think she'll do?_

When it came down to it, it seemed one could not work with pity where there was fear and hatred rooted much deeper. It seemed one should think before they spoke. It seemed one could only go so far with a half-baked plan and a sea of desperation.

 _I will not make the same mistake again._

Turning to the woman who had raised him like a horse would a stray cat, whose immediate reaction to the news of Voldemort's return had been to kick him out of her house, and whom he could not, in good conscience, entirely fault for the decision, he said: "Make some sandwiches to take away, I'll go pack my stuff," and without further ado, left the room. Perhaps she would oblige him, perhaps not, and he would have to come up with a place to safely get something to eat a little sooner.

Having thrown the window open so that Hedwig would know he wanted her to come back, he made a quick work of getting the few things he had taken out of it back into his trunk. Ready to go, Harry forced himself to sit down on the freshly made bed, stop for a while and think on how to best get out of this mess. His first instinct was telling him to make it last forever, as it had been the only proven method to get him to feel somewhat alive, so far. What would that instinct have him do, then? Run away and play hide and seek with both Dumbledore and Voldemort? He could pull out the offended card, his friends and Sirius had kept him out of the loop for no apparent reason, after all. It would be fun, exciting, uncalled for, unnecessarily dangerous and absolutely pointless.

If he did not escape, though, he would have to face-

 _So many th-_

Anyway. No sulking, no hiding. There was too much at stake, here. This was not the time to embrace one's bouts of childishness. He wanted to know what was happening and help bring snake-face down, not become one more item on everyone's list of things to worry about. Which meant that he had two options. Either send a letter and ask someone to come and pick him up, or make his way to them, himself. Wherever they were, Hedwig would find them. If he asked for help, there was the chance of whomever came simply threatening his aunt into taking him back. If he left on his own, he would be risking getting attacked on the way. Considering his current level of desperation to be doing something, his gourmet taste in adventure and finally his strong preference for getting out of this hell-hole, it was not a difficult choice to make.

He couldn't exactly follow Hedwig in the Knight Bus. Was there a Knight Plane? But public means of transport were not an option, anyway. He would go to his godfather rather than wherever Ron and Hermione were staying - neither one of his friends had invited him, unlike Sirius. And there was no way he was leading anyone to the Azkaban escapee's hideout. On second thought, he would rather impose his undesirable presence on Ron and Hermione than risk being followed and getting his godfather Kissed.

Flying to his friends' it was, then. Night-time, preferably, since he couldn't count on the Invisibility Cloak to reliably cover him from all angles, especially from below. He should probably also change into some warmer clothes, in case he needed to travel a longer distance. Some water and sandwiches were also a must.

And he needed to figure out how to best tie his trunk and Hedwig's cage to the Firebolt. Wait, that didn't sound like a good idea. He couldn't let his broom lose so much manoeuvrability if there was even the slightest chance of an attack. One of Dudley's old backpacks would have to be enough for the journey. He could easily ask someone to Apparate or Portkey back for his things when he was safe.

 _There. That wasn't so hard, was it?_

~o~o~o~

As hot day turned into a balmy night outside, Harry Potter decided it was time. On his way down the stairs, he tried to subdue the excitement bubbling in his stomach with all his might - it was no use. His heart was thumping away in his chest like a herd of angry hippogriffs, his blood pounding in his ears, his hands trembling if only slightly. He couldn't but note just how easy it had been to get used to feeling nothing, and how hard it now was to get a hold of himself when all the feeling suddenly rushed back into him. Emotional control was, apparently, a muscle like any other.

 _Push through. Move._

The house was very empty. It was about two hours ago that his aunt and uncle had gone to pick up Dudley from the Polkiss', most likely so that they could celebrate this memorable day by eating out. Harry suspected this plan has been carefully woven and executed by Petunia - who otherwise did not have a diplomatic bone in her body - in a desperate effort to keep her husband from making a scene which could potentially cause Harry's infamous temper to flare, his pride and stubbornness to come to life and - God forbid - give him a reason to stay.

 _No sandwiches. Figures._

Grabbing three bananas and thus emptying the fruit bowl, Harry proceeded to see himself out of the patio door. In the middle of the Dursley's perfectly inoffensive and perfectly boring garden, he dropped the Firebolt so that he could stuff his prize into a green turtle shell backpack - the only one he had found that didn't have silly pictures on it.

Feeling rather stupid but putting on his knitted, Griffindor-coloured gloves, anyway, he said to Hedwig: "To Ron and Hermione, girl."

The owl delicately perched on one of the pales of the fence, waiting patiently, blinked one more time, gave a soft hoot of understanding and took off. Harry checked for nosy neighbours, threw the invisibility cloak over himself, mounted his broom and followed.

~o~o~o~

The pure joy of being in the air hit him only to be replaced by numbness with a gentle, just-out-of-grasp trickle of fear mere seconds later.

 _So many-_

 _Push through. Move. Patience. Get better. You are strong enough. Control. Do your best. It matters. You have a choice. Choose. Fail. Learn. You will not make the same mistake again. Humility. You care._

The mantra ran through his head almost on autopilot and he suddenly found that he could breathe again. As soon as it received its dose of oxygen, Harry's brain noticed that his fingers and toes were slowly but surely freezing off. On a summer night. It took the first lamp flickering out for him to find them.

Two tall hooded figures in tattered black cloaks. All three Dursleys huddled together in a heap on the pavement.

And then a thought crossed his mind that had never occurred to him before in a situation like this. The Dementors didn't seem to have noticed him yet. Did he have it in him to just turn his back on his relatives and leave them to this gruesome fate?

 _I don't have to like them to risk my soul for them._

 _Really?_

And to his surprise and mild horror, Harry realised that he did have it in him. But there was still something keeping him in place watching with morbid fascination as the creatures swooped down on his aunt, uncle and cousin.

 _I care._

It was a faint whisper in the back of his mind, but it was there. They were muggles and they were defenceless, whereas he was not.

~o~o~o~

 _AN: Thank you for reading, review please :)_


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